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Kosovo: Serbs were attacked by Albanian police [dozens wounded]

More than 50 Serbian civilians were injured in clashes on Thursday when the so called authorities in Kosovo deported a group of visiting Serbian civilians, leaving one with life-threatening gunshot wounds.

The group of about 70 Serbs was travelling in two buses to Gazimestan, a religious and historic Serbian site close to the Pristina, when the brutal police turned them back.

Serbian health authorities said one Serb sustained life-threatening injuries in the clashes and that five others were hospitalized with gunshot wounds. A total of twenty Serbs sought medical care in the towns of Kursumlija and Prokuplje.

Police in Kosovo declined to confirm whether they had fired live rounds at the Serb group.

Doctors in Gracanica, a Serb municipality close to the capital Pristina, said they had treated 17 injured people after Molotov cocktails and stones were thrown at the Serbs' buses.

NATO's mission in Kosovo also said Molotov cocktails had been thrown at the convoy of busses with Serbian Children - as it passed through Pristina - and condemned the violence against inocent Serbian civilians who wanted to visit the Serbian holy place.

Windows on the ‪Serbia‬n children's bus stoned by Albanian vandals

"This shameful action is contrary to the integrity of the maintenance of a safe and secure environment for all people in Kosovo," it said in a statement.

Gazimestan is a field just outside Pristina, where Serbs mark St. Vitus Day and the 1389 Battle of Kosovo, when an Orthodox Christian Serb force led by Tsar Lazar fight a decisive battle to invading Muslim Ottoman Turks.

Ivica Dacic, Serbia's prime minister-designate, said the incident was damaging for peace and stability in Kosovo. "International troops there have an obligation to preserve peace and security ... All future talks (with Kosovo) must be based on the preservation of security," Dacic told reporters in Belgrade.

In Gazimestan, where the ceremony took place, police searched buses and seized flags, shirts and other items on which there were symbols of Serbia, from visiting Serbs.

on twitter

** Journalists of "Glas Srpske" & "RTRS" were attacked by Albanian police as well & stripped of their shirts in Gazimestan ‪#Kosovo‬ ‪#Pilgrimage‬